The present invention relates to a pressure connector designed to conduct electricity between pressuring blades and the conductor of an electric wire by pressing the electric wire into the pressuring blades. The present invention is directed, in particular, to an improved cover member structure for increasing the retainability of the electric wire at a pressuring part.
A pressure connector so designed that a sheathed electric wire is pressed into the pressuring blades and the sheath thereof is cut to cause the conductor of the wire to come in pressure contact with the pressuring blades for conduction is advantageous in mass production, but is disadvantageous in keeping the electric wire well retained at the pressuring part against vibrations and the like.
An exemplary pressure connector that has overcome such disadvantage by providing an electric wire contact means at the pressuring part will be described with reference to FIGS. 8 to 10. FIG. 8 is an exploded perspective view of a conventional pressure connector; FIG. 9 is a sectional view showing a terminal accommodating chamber portion after the connector has been assembled; and FIG. 10 is a front view showing a condition in which an electric wire is in pressure contact.
A housing 3 having openings of a plurality of terminal accommodating chambers 1 formed on both upper and lower surfaces thereof is assembled while interposed by a pair of covers 5a, 5b from above and below. A plurality of electric wire contact projections 7 corresponding to the terminal accommodating chambers 1 are projected on the inner walls of the covers 5a, 5b. Each electric wire contact projection 7 is interposed between pressuring blades 9a, 9b of a pressure terminal 9 with the covers 5a, 5b being assembled to the housing 3 as shown in FIG. 9, the pressure terminal 9 being accommodated in the terminal accommodating chamber 1. A sheath 11 (see FIG. 10) is cut by the pressuring blades 9a, 9b, and the electric wire contact projection comes in contact with an electric wire 15 whose conductor 13 is in conduction.
As a result, the vertical displacement of the wire (in directions indicated by arrows a in FIG. 10) caused by vibrations and the like is regulated, which in turn improves the retainability of the electric wire 15 and hence increases the reliability of electric contact at the pressuring part.
However, the conventional pressure connector is designed to interpose each electric wire contact projection 7 between the pressuring blades 9a, 9b of the pressure terminal 9, which is accommodated in the corresponding terminal accommodating chamber 1, by providing the electric wire contact projections 7 on both a pair of upper and lower covers 5a, 5b and assembling the covers 5a, 5b to the housing. Therefore, two parts are required to form the cover member, and this increases the number of parts, thereby not only increasing the cost of manufacture, but also making the parts control cumbersome.
Further, the two-part cover structure requires that the electric wires 15 be placed in order in an electric wire insertion portion 17 (see FIG. 8) so that the electric wires 15 led out of the plurality of upper and lower terminal accommodating chambers 1 will not be pinched between the covers 5a, 5b during the operation of assembling the cover, which has made assembling operability extremely impaired.